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Breadboards
The one advantage to breadboards: Test out circuitry without soldering. These breadboars have holes in them, and they allow you easily send an electrical current through them so you can easily see which design works for you. Mounted on top of an Arduino, you can easily put more components on it and still have the power of an Arduino. For users with more experience, there are boards that you can solder components to. PCBs In most pictures you see, a PCB will either have etched lines or will have holes in them. The ones with hole allow you to solder wires together under the board so so you don't have to see the top. The etched ones are a little bit complicated, you usually have to etch them yourself to get power to the controllers and transistors on the board. In addition, you may have to install the pins yourself. PCBs are useful because when using them, they don't fall apart that easy. Breadboards fall apart, and will give you trouble when trying to put them to use for longer periods of time. Imagine what it would be like if all the pieces in your computer fell apart from time to time and you had to take it to the shop to get it fixed once every week. Imagine that, how much money you would spend on computers alone for one year. And imagine buying a new computer every 2 months, when the old one went bad. That's why breadboards aren't used very much except for beginner's purposes. PCBs are a little complicated to create because it involves a soldering gun. You probably may mess up on one of them, and you have to spend more money to get new parts. This is why you only use PCBs if you are experienced enough. Just like software: If you don't know what it is or what it does, don't install it. If you wanty to use a PCB, you will have to be careful you put all the components in the right place. A rule that some people use to help them is usually check it three times, consult the blueprints and check it another three times. Even the most experienced engineers forget this rule, and they end up screwing up. Breadboards Breadboards are useful because they can get the job done, but they can be re-arranged. Just like mentioned above, though, don't use them for production. They will eventually break apart and users will get mad. During practice and testing, though, these are ideal to be used for short periods of time, e.g. a demonstration to the board of your company on how a new product would work, for example. Breadboards are useful because they don't need to be soldered, and you can use the parts over. This makes it so if you want to revise or improvise, you will get a great deal done in just half an hour rather than days and money spent on practice PCBs. Breadboards first were used in the 1820s. The name breadboard came from the actual use of breadboards. Wooden breadboards were used wwhen they didn't have the plastic ones with holes cut out. The original Apple 1 was based on the use of a breadboard. The engineers from the 1920s cut parts out of the breadboards, which usually served back then as high-end radios. Earlier versions were doorbells, and some were used just to test out new ideas. And yes, they were the same ones used that you put bread on. Braedboards today are cheap and you can usually find them at RadioShack and Amazon. You can also get ones that are made special for the Arduino, and they are a little more expensive, but they work just like a shield. The best part about breadboards is they don't require soldering, and they are cheap so if one has a large chip out of it, you can go to the store and buy one for around $15-$20. Designs Using Both Some engineers have come out with low-end products that usually consist of a breadboard connected to a PCB, and the components are all soldered, including the ones on the breadboard. Some examples can be found across the Internat, but we don't actually have any proof of this here yet. These products can usually be found on homebrew engineers websites, and are usually cheap.